eating locally

FARMER JOHN PLOWED UNDER

I am away from my desk attending a family reunion.  To get to bucolic Monticello, Illinois, I have driven through countless miles of land that was once prairie and then small farms and is now an endless stretch of massive sterile mega-fields servicing agribusiness.   While I am reconnecting with […]

ENJOY YOUR VEGETABLES. AVOID E. COLI

Remember 2006 when suddenly everyone was afraid to eat spinach because there were reports of contaminated greens in a couple of taco restaurant chains.  It turned out to be contaminated iceberg lettuce that caused at least 276 cases of illness and 3 deaths. How much good produce had to be […]

GROWING A REGIONAL FOOD ECONOMY

One of the workshops at the Midwest Organic Farming Conference we attended a few weeks ago was called “Creating a Regional Food Economy in Our Backyard.” This is a topic Doug and I care deeply about, and it’s central to the plans we have for our future. We’re lucky.  We […]

OUR FARM THIS FALL

It’s been a hot, dry October.  Odd to watch the leaves being blown off the trees by such balmy breezes.   But fall is fall — and that means crazed squirrel time.  Winter is coming, and there are things to do before the ground freezes. With Doug teaching biology at UW-Platteville […]